Bannocks – gluten free, vegetarian oat cakes

It’s been an oatmeal kind of autumn around here – there’s something about the cooler weather that calls out for the warmth and earthiness of hot oats, don’t you think?

Recently I was having a taste flashback to the bannocks we used to eat when I was a kid living in Sitka, and decided to try and make them for the boys – but there were so many recipes out there . . . I didn’t know where to start. I wanted simple and oat-y; I wasn’t interested in adding flour to make them bread-like. I also wanted to capture all the flavors of a bowl of oatmeal in a simple round patty. So I did what I always do – read a handful of recipes and then make up my own. After a few weeks of tweeking, here I present (drum roll, please!) the perfect oatcake! Oats, egg, and banana are really the only ingredients you need; everything else just dresses the oatcakes up a bit. And if you use leftover cooked oatmeal, you can omit the egg and make it vegan. Seriously, don’t these look scrumptious? And did you ever think you’d see the words “scrumptious” and “oatmeal” together???

The boys LOVE these oatcakes – seriously love them, like a kid might love a chocolate chip cookie. Ok, they are way too old for me to worry about making kid-friendly food, but these totally pass the test. Kid One has even memorized the recipe so he’ll be able to recreate them when the day comes he has a kitchen of his own.

I love them because it’s a simple, fast recipe – really only 15 minutes tops from start to finish. Note that the batter is almost crumbly, almost the opposite of doughy. Don’t worry, just cook on low heat and and the bannock will stick together nicely.

Hi!
I just made these and we love them! I decided to modify the recipe so it would be vegan. Instead of the egg I stirred a tablespoon of freshly ground flax seed into three tablespoons of water and let it sit for an hour, added a healthy pinch of baking powder, and stirred it into the bananas and honey before adding that to the dry ingredients (to which I also added raisins). Thanks for a great recipe!

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